Can there be a study done about how Katherine Center perfectly and seamlessly write a hilariously fun rom-com with such depth, in just over 300 pages? The Love Haters takes us on a journey of self-love, complicated familial relationships, and healing. Set to release in May 2025, it’ll be a perfect summer read.

Please note that this book does contain discussions about body image and disordered eating.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy of The Love Haters in exchange for my honest review.

This is just the love story that I needed in my life! I figured it would be amazing, because every book that I have read of Katherine Center’s has been, but it surpassed my expectations! The love story between the two very unlikely main characters is sweet and romantic. I also really loved the found family aspect of the story and the way then main female character finds herself and a family when she goes to Key West for a work assignment. Center did her research because I learned a lot about Coast Guard and water rescue while reading the book, which was pretty neat to learn too. Read this and you won’t regret it. I only regret that it had to end and I am left pining for the next Katherine Center book!

Katie is a videographer in Dallas who has taken an assignment in hopes of saving her job. The trouble is, she has to follow around the unbelievably good-looking and good-natured Hutch, remain professional, and swim. She doesn’t even know how to swim. Once in Key West, Katie finds herself knee-deep in the lives of Hutch and his family and an adorable retiree crowd, while battling her own personal demons. Can a rescue swimmer can save her from herself?

Am I biased because I love her writing so much or is she just really good at her job? I think I say this every time, but Katherine Center can do no wrong. We are all here for the banter, right? And she delivers - witty, self-deprecating humor, dynamic evolutions of relationships for all the characters, insane situations that people find themselves in because they love to get in their own way, and humor. Lots of smirks and smiles and sweet times. I believe the stand-out crew in this novel may be The Gals (including Rue) because they just remind me of the Golden Girls sitting in the background, or perhaps those two muppets who comment on everything from the balcony. They’re adorable. The two main characters Katie and Hutch are perfect - she is struggling with her own mental hangups and he is grief-stricken and hot - and as soon as I saw they were end goal I was all for the slow burn evolution between these two. Although this is not my favorite novel by Center, it is still beautiful, moving, and insanely well-written, I read it in one day, and now I feel like I could teach a master class on rescue swimming and the Coast Guard. I will be recommending this to everyone I know (along with all her other novels). Thanks for doing your thing, K.C., and continuing to give us stand-out stories that make us feel good.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

She does it again! Thank you for the ARC of The Love Haters! Katherine could write anything and I will want to devour it as quickly as possible! I read this whole book in a day! I love the way Katherine can write banter and characters that make me laugh while also tackling heavy topics like body image and grief. Many scenes had me laughing out loud, and some scenes had me actively crying. I enjoyed the inside look at the USCG and what they do. Who doesn’t love a hero in uniform? I want my life filled with Rues and Hutch and a never-ending friendship with Beanie. I would also really love to grow up to have a community of friends who got together and cooked dinner every night, took swim lessons, and went on road trips to escape hurricanes. The Coles of the world are not welcome and even with his moment reconciling with Hutch, he himself had no redeeming qualities and just made everything worse. I already have 2 very large dogs of my own, but I would happily take a George Bailey too. I also love the little moments between the characters. Rue buying Katie clothes to bring color and joy into her life. Hutch stealing the hibiscus. Hutch only wanting 1965 pennies and Katie saving them all in the end. George Bailey feeling safe with both Hutch and Katie during a storm. The women distancing Sully from messing with Katie and Cole and Hutch. I loved it all, I wanted to be part of it in real life. All the stars! Thank you again for the ARC of The Love Haters!

Katherine Center's books are always so wholesome!

The romance was cute, but I loved the body positivity message. Katie learning to love and appreciate herself was so sweet ❤️

Though her ex-boyfriend being a celebrity felt like a hilariously unnecessary detail, but it added to the charm of the story. And it did make Katie's body image issues more obvious, even if it wasn't necessarily relatable.

✨𝔸ℝℂ ℝ𝔼𝕍𝕀𝔼𝕎✨
The Love Haters by @katherinecenter
COMING MAY 20, 2025 @stmartinspress
⭐️4/5

I was so excited to see The Love Haters was available on NetGalley, I ignored my never ending TBR list and jumped into this one right away 🎉

The Love Haters follows Katie, a film maker with a negative relationship with her body and self image and a fear of bathing suits and water, and Hutch, a rescuer with the coast guard with a heart of gold and his own emotional backstory.
It has laugh out loud moments plus many heartfelt scenes set in the beautiful Florida Keys and a cast of amazing side characters (especially Great Dane, George Bailey). It is a beautiful story of self love, friendship and found family. 🌺

Mark your calendars for May 20th and add this to your TBR, you won’t be disappointed.

Thank you to @katherinecenter and @netgalley for the opportunity to read this lovely story in exchange for an honest review.

One thing I can always count on when inhaling Katherine Center’s stories is that I will be so immersed in the characters that she creates that time will fly by, the ending coming sooner than I wanted. Living in Los Angeles, I need a distraction and this story hit the spot. It was fast paced with characters that I fell in love with (The Gals!), a will they won’t they love story between Katie and Hutch, but more importantly, I got caught up in their individual lives, feeling like I had a front row seat into their feelings. I sympathized with Katie. As a woman, how could you not relate, and I started creating my own list. This story held so much more than two “love haters”. It was about acceptance and self love and dealing with traumas head on in a healthy way. I loved it.

The list of contemporary romance authors I will not hesitate to pick up new releases for is very short, and Katherine Center is one of the authors on that list. However, I'm a little relieved that for this one, I ended up with an ARC rather than pre-ordering a copy. I liked The Love Haters just fine. I was charmed by the whole Florida Keys crew - The Gals, Rue, Hutch, and George Bailey. However, the intense attraction at first sight combined with an overly condensed time period leading up to the halfway mark of the book made the romance feel very underdeveloped.

Katherine Center doesn't shy away from bringing her characters together through bizarre circumstances, but The Love Haters didn't pull it off as well (except for the hurricane; that is the sort of outlandish thing I love!). Cole was too unlikeable, his reasoning too half-baked to believe Katie would really go along with it. The storyline about Lucas regretting his choices felt even less thought out and borderline unnecessary. The real relatability for the purpose of that line is present enough in the self-consciousness that Katie's stepmother put into her. This book does a fantastic job reminding the reader through Katie's journey that it's so important that we treat ourselves with care and love. That being said, it presents body issues through a lens I find toxic. Once you get to that point where you can accept and appreciate your body, you're still allowed to want to change things about the way you look. Starvation and self-loathing is a miserable and unsustainable path to weight loss. That doesn't mean that good ways to get there don't exist, and I had hoped that with Hutch's very physically demanding job, a more nuanced look at health might have taken place.

All that being said, this book was still very fun to read. I laughed out loud multiple times, I got teary-eyed over Katie's emotional trials more than once, and I was very much rooting for a happy ending for her, Hutch, and George Bailey. I'd absolutely recommend it to anyone who just wants a quick, easy romance and needs a little encouragement to start appreciating themselves a little more.

Thank you to NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press for the eARC!

When I saw that The Lover Haters by Katherine Center was available as an ARC I jumped on the chance to read it! I am a fan of her writing as she makes you feel like the characters are part of your life. Katie was struggling with self-doubt which you learn about pretty quickly and she learns that has to take a job assignment to keep her job which involves being around water and she cannot swim. Hutch is a rescue swimmer for the USCG and Katie is work with him to create a promo video, with his help he teaches her to swim and helps build her confidence. The characters make this story fun, have "heart and soul."

Thank you Net Galley and St Martin's Press for the advanced copy of The Lovers Haters.

First, a big thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s publishing group for this amazing eARC.

Katherine Center has done it again — she made me laugh, cry, fall in love, and remember how much good there is in the world. The Love Haters pairs a journalist with a rescue diver, two surprisingly relatable characters, and takes place in the Florida Keys, a location as gorgeous, quirky, and surreal as the novel itself.


Here are some random thoughts that I had while reading The Love Haters:

I’m like ROYALTY getting to read this book early!

These characters are delightful. The quirkier the better IMO.

I want to live in the Keys with all of my besties.

Katherine Center is not particularly worried about keeping things realistic.

Rescue swimming is incredible.

I love that her books always go deeper— this time we get themes of body image and grief, along with how social media can be toxic..

This is going to stick with me.

The ending is EPIC. I honestly think nobody in romance does an ending as well as KC.

I think she said she considers all her readers friends, so I just want to congratulate my friend Katherine Center on another incredible, deep, heartwarming work of art.

I give it 10/10 stars and recommend it to all readers of fiction and romance. Read it and be delighted.

If someone was ever taken hostage and told you that ransom was a laugh out loud romcom/the most perfect book ever, GIVE THEM THE LOVE HATERS.

Katherine Center has the kind of writing that allows you to see the scenes playing out in your head like a movie. Quite a few times I had to remind myself that I was just reading words on my Kindle and that I wasn’t in Key West with an a hundred and sixty pound Great Dane barreling towards me. To my dismay, in the fourth hour of one of my read a thon days of this book while I was ripping through it, my Kindle decided to stop working. I cannot describe the panic I felt at being separated from these characters for more than a of couple minutes. Luckily, once I restarted it (the first thing I do anytime something isn’t working), I was able to dive right back in. I joked that my Kindle had gotten tired of hearing me laugh at words on paper and turning off was basically its way of saying “go touch grass, you weirdo”. I did not listen.

Not only was the romance in this story screaming and kicking my feet kind of adorable — as in, smiling and blushing by myself in my bed at midnight — there were so many layers to the story that really bonded me with the characters and got me invested in the story. Also, when you find yourself highlighting THE AUTHOR’S NOTE in a book, you know it’s good. Specifically, that the author genuinely is one of your favorites ever (I love you Katherine Center). It really resonated with me when she said that not only was this book a love story between Hutch and Katie, it was also a love story between Katie and herself. Katie’s journey of self love and acceptance was truly inspiring and real and I would be lying if I said that it didn’t change my perspective about quite a few things.

I came for the romance, and I stayed for the sneaky life lessons that Katherine Center wove in to this story… and for the romance. To those who say that the romcom movies of the 90s and early 2000s are dead… THEY WOULDN’T HAVE TO BE IF WE JUST HAD KATHERINE CENTER WRITE THEM ALL. I would give this book six stars if I could.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and, of course, Katherine Center (the romcom queen herself) for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Katherine Center’s The Love Haters is an absolute gem—witty, heartfelt, and impossible to put down.

The story follows Katie Vaughn, a video producer with a knack for dodging risks, who lands in over her head when she profiles Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a charming and heroic Coast Guard rescue swimmer.

I loved how Katie’s journey, filled with laugh-out-loud moments and emotional discoveries, felt so relatable and inspiring. Center’s writing shines with warmth and depth, making the romance between Katie and Hutch sizzle while exploring themes of vulnerability, courage, and self-acceptance.

This book is a perfect reminder of why love, no matter how messy, is always worth the risk. I couldn’t stop smiling while reading it!

As always, thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for giving me an arc of this book in exchange for my honest thought.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This story is magic! There’s a tremendous amount of substance in this text. It’s not just about love between a man and a woman but love and forgiveness between friends, family, and one’s own self. These characters and this story resonated with my heart. Katherine Center delivered, as always, a deep yet light-hearted, whimsical yet thrilling, beauty of a tale that was the dopamine hit I was expecting from one of her books. As many books as she has written, her plots are always fresh and her characters endearingly charming.

Thank you to Katherine Center, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for the privilege of reading an advanced copy of this book!

I love the way Katherine Center puts a little bit of herself in all of her books. She has a way of describing seemingly mundane actions, like a FaceTime, and making it so relatable and real. I giggle at the characters and their reactions nonstop. There is a certain realness to her books that not a lot of authors can capture.

Katie struggles a lot with body image. It wasn’t a main plot point, more of a subplot, but I think it was handled well without making the book too serious. Even when discussing her insecurities, the book never lost the underlying upbeat tone. I loved when Katie and her friend point out things they like about themselves because that is something my sister and I have done.

Also any book with a dog immediately has me. George Bailey has my heart.

Katherine Center is one of my favorite romance authors, but this book didn’t quite hit the mark for me. The romance felt rushed, relying on the “insta-love” trope, which left me feeling disconnected. When the male lead confesses his feelings around the halfway point, it stripped the romance of any tension, making it hard for me to stay invested in their relationship.

That said, the book shines in other areas. The theme of self-love is thoughtfully explored, and Katie, the protagonist, is a relatable and well-developed character. Her personal growth throughout the story added depth, even if the romance didn’t live up to expectations.

Fans of Center's heartfelt storytelling may still enjoy this book, but those looking for a more gradual, layered romance might find it lacking.

Another beautifully written story by Katherine Center. I don't even know where to begin, this is not only a love story but a story of Katie falling back in love with herself, as well two brothers, Cole and "Hutch" coming back to a reconcinliation of sorts. And who does'nt love a story with a great dane rescue dog and a band of golden girls living their best life?
And even though it does not have anything to do with the actual book, I always appreciate extra effort Katherine Center puts into her authors note at the end of each book and make sure I read each one.

This book had my attention from the first page. There were equal amounts of romance, comedy, and character growth. I related so much to the FMC and her body image issues. If you’re a fan of the movie The Guardian, you will appreciate the MMC’s job. I love all of Katherine’s books and this one didn’t disappoint!

I enjoyed the book and finished it in two sittings — Hutch really stood out for me, while Cole honestly felt a bit underdeveloped / confusing. Katie’s early inner dialogue dragged and was a bit painful to get through at times, but I loved the conversations between characters in the book (especially between Hutch & Katie - very grumpy x sunshine lol). The story kept me engaged, but it didn’t necessarily leave me with that lingering pull after I’d finished.

Thank you to NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

I loved this book. Katherine Center is a popular author for good reason!
I went into it expecting a cute and silly summer romance, but it was SO much more than that!
Themes of family tension, loss, body image, and self love & acceptance are all wrapped up within the pages of this book along with a very sweet and silly romance plot line.
My favorite character is Rue, she's so adorable!
Also, the setting was gorgeous and I want to visit Florida again lol
I highly recommend this book, Katherine Center never disappoints!
Thank you St. Martin's Press for the advanced readers copy!

Another fun romance by Katherine Center. When the main character is sent to do a video report on a Coast agiard rescue swimmer she comes alive to color, to the power of swimming, to the love of a Great Dane and to a burgeoning relationship with Hutch. Loved the plot, the wit, the adventure.